


Pride and Joy

by predilection



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5657515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shmi remembers Qui-Gon Jinn sitting at her table and Anakin telling him, "I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves."</p><p>(A Star Wars fix-it fic in which Anakin experiences a much happier reunion with his mother.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride and Joy

**Author's Note:**

> After re-watching _The Phantom Menace_ , I decided to write fix-it fic that explored Anakin's potential to do good. Also, I wrote this story because I really like Shmi Skywalker and because I think she deserved better.
> 
> Warning: This fic discusses slavery, particularly the way slaves were prevented from leaving Tatooine.

Shmi doesn't recognize the man at her door. He has sandy-colored hair, a beard and bright blue eyes. "Can I help you?" she asks.

He opens the thick brown cloak he's wearing just enough for her to be able to see one of his hands. His first two fingers are curved towards his palm -- a sign of the Abolitionists -- and she hastily but cautiously opens her door further and allows him inside.

"Thank you," he says once the door is closed behind them and he's pulled down his hood. "We don't have much time."

"What can I do to help?" she asks.

To her surprise, he smiles at her and says, "Shmi Skywalker, I'm here to help you."

She backs away from him and asks, "Who are you?"

"My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Qui-Gon Jinn was my master," the man -- Obi-Wan -- says. "I'm here with Anakin to take you away from this place." 

The mention of her son makes her pause. She takes a deep breath. "Where is he?" 

"He's on our ship," Obi-Wan replies. He takes off his cloak, and while he's wearing a simple tunic underneath it, she notices the lightsaber resting on his hip. That he's a Jedi lends credibility to his words but he also identified himself as an Abolitionist, and the Jedi have long stood by and done nothing to help the slaves. 

"Are you really an Abolitionist?" she asks. 

"Yes," he says, his voice gentle. He pulls out a chrono and says, "It shouldn't be long now."

"What--" she begins to ask when she feels it. An energy field of some sort -- a powerful one at that -- passes through the house and through her body. She doesn't know why, but it feels familiar. Her skin tingles.

"What was that?" she asks, feeling unsettled.

Obi-Wan grins and he seems proud when he replies, "Your son just deactivated every transmitter implant in Mos Espa." He checks his chrono again. "Within the hour, there won't be an active one left on the planet. That includes your transmitter, Shmi. You're free to leave this place."

For a moment, all she can do is blink at the man standing before her. His words sound unbelievable -- they sound too good to be true -- but somehow she _knows_ he's telling her the truth.

She blinks again, fighting tears.

"Pack whatever you want to take with you," Obi-Wan tells her softly, still smiling, and she feels like she's in shock when she turns away from him and begins to collect her most important possessions.

 

*

 

As she walks towards the port alongside Obi-Wan, she notices that no one so much as glances in their direction.

"Force re-direction," he explains even though she never asked a question. "Most people won't notice us, and those that do will immediately find something else to focus on."

She desperately wants to ask about Anakin -- to ask if he's really here, if he's alright and if that field she felt was really his doing -- but instead she says, "I thought that the Jedi didn't care about the slaves of the Outer Rim."

Even with his face half-hidden by his hood, she's able to see Obi-Wan frown. "Officially, we were never here," he says.

"Do you know what today is?" she asks carefully. He said he was an Abolitionist, after all.

He nods. "The Re-Claiming will begin at nightfall. We need to be gone by then."

She wonders at that and thinks, then, of the first time she met a Jedi. She remembers Qui-Gon Jinn sitting at her table and Anakin telling him, "I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves."

Something heavy settles in her throat. She doesn't know what her son has been doing the long years they've spent apart, but she desperately hopes that his dream is finally coming true.

 

*

 

Obi-Wan leads her to an old transport at the outer edges of the port. Once they're on board, he shuts the boarding ramp behind them. It makes a dull thudding noise as it locks, and despite the honesty she felt from Obi-Wan earlier, Shmi wonders if she's just walked into a trap.

Then she hears the increasingly loud patter of footfalls on metal and a young man runs out of a passageway. Her breath leaves her even before his arms close around her, holding her close.

"Mom," he says.

Her hands are shaking as she raises them to hug him back, and her voice is equally unsteady when she asks, "Ani?" She remembers fitting him into her arms easily. Now she's the one fitting into his.

He squeezes her tighter before pulling back and looking down at her. As he searches her face, she feels like she's drowning in the sight of him. She never expected to see him again and yet here he is standing before her.

He's taller than she is and she has to crane her neck to look at him. His hair is no longer sun bleached and it's been cut close to his head. His face is narrower and his voice is deeper but his eyes -- his eyes that have always held curiosity and brilliance and strength -- are the same.

She realizes that she crying when he wipes away her tears. "Oh, Ani," she says. 

She's about to ask one of the hundreds of questions she has when Obi-Wan interrupts them. "My apologies, but we really should be going."

Anakin hesitates as he pulls away from her. Obi-Wan takes a step forward and places a hand on his shoulder. "Find two seats. I'll pilot," he offers. "After all, you two have a lot of catching up to do."

 

*

 

Anakin takes her hand and leads her to a pair of seats. They sit together, soaking in each other's presence, until the ship has jumped to light-speed. 

Anakin slides his fingers into the cuff of her shirt and gently pulls it up until her forearm is bare. He offers her a small smile and says, "I figured out how to scan for the transmitters."

She remembers that that was another one of his dreams -- to construct a scanner -- and finds herself smiling back. He places his palm over the skin just below the inside of her elbow and says, "Yours is here." 

She wonders how he built the device to locate it until she realizes that he didn't have a chance to scan her yet and that he probably didn't use a device at all.

It hits her, suddenly, that in their time apart, her son became a Jedi, and she feels a profound sense of relief that Qui-Gon kept his word -- that her son's been granted the life she could only dream of giving him. 

"Can I remove it?" he asks gently. "They'll be a sharp pain, but only for a second."

She nods and before her eyes, a small incision appears in her skin. It stings briefly as a device the size and shape of a grain of rice seems to be pulled from her arm by an invisible force. She knows it's Anakin's doing and watches as he floats the device through the air and into a container on a nearby bench. Then she watches as her skin knits itself back together. After only a few moments, the only evidence that remains of the incision is a tiny patch of pink skin.

She looks up at her son in awe and notices the tears in his eyes. "I deactivated it earlier, but I wanted to show you that you really are free," he tells her. 

"Thank you, Ani," she says, and starts to cry again. Even after she told him to forget about her, he came back for her. 

She remembers the energy field she felt -- the one that apparently deactivated every transmitter on the planet -- and knows he also came back for all the slaves on Tatooine. 

She thinks of Anakin's dream and of what he's accomplished, and she takes a deep breath as her emotions threaten to overwhelm her. In all her life, she's never felt such joy.

She reaches for Anakin and he slides closer to her until she can wrap her arms around him. She clings to him and tells him what she feels with her whole heart: "I love you, and I'm so proud of you."

He clings back and she can feel his tears against her neck when he says, "I love you too, mom."


End file.
